4-way + trackball, opinions needed.

[paigeoliver]

I will probably be putting together 3 machines.

I have plenty of cabinets and controls to work with.  Exactly what cabinets I will be using is still up in the air. That all depends on what I can and can't fix, and what I can and can't sell.

I am pretty much locked in on what the first cabinet will be. Horizontal with two 8-way sticks and 6 buttons per player. I-Pac interface (already have), and Wico balltop sticks (already have). Athlon 650 CPU (.already have), and 21" kiosk monitor (already have).

Second machine will be a desktop vertical spinner setup. Only have the monitor for this so far. Plan on having it use my desktop computer as it's cpu (so I don't have to buy another). I figure a desktop unit would be good for spinner games, and I didn't want to waste the floorspace, dedicated computer and cabinet just for Arkanoid + Tempest.

The third cabinet is what I am up in the air about. I plan on having a 4-way (already have), PS2 trackball (already have), and 21" kiosk monitor (already have). I can probably only piece together a 200 mhz computer or so for this one. I can't really decide if I should go vertical or horizontal with the monitor. Most of the really good 4-way and trackball games are vertical. BUT that locks out some great horizontal games like Do! Run Run, Crystal Castles, Thief, and several others.

Going horizontal would allow me to play everything, BUT the vast majority of games on the cabinet would certainly be vertical, so I would totally be wasting monitor real estate.

What good horizontal 4-way and/or trackball games would I be missing out on if I went vertical? I will probably have room on the panel to sneak in an 8-way as well, only have a joystick PCB to wire this one with, so 2 player controls are not an option.

[paigeoliver]

If I were to use my Amazing Maze cabinet for the horizontal setup I would probably be able to sneak a 4-way onto it too (it is 26.5" wide instead of the 24" that most games are). That would mostly solve the problem, but I don't really want to be playing new games on a nearly 30 year old bronze age cabinet.

[MinerAl]

You can play horizontal games on a vertical screen just like you can play verts on a horiz one.  You'll have wasted real estate above and below, but if most of the games are vertical and only a few are horizontal go with the majority.

My cocktail is vertical, but the 24" display is big enough to do justice to horizontal games.  It's like having a 24" vertical screen, but only a 19" horizontal one.   The vertical classics look awesome and the horizontal ones only look very good